In 2010 — with his Siebel Institute education, training in Germany and Belgium, and degree from Yale tucked under his arm — Ben Edmunds opened Breakside Brewery in the quiet Woodlawn neighborhood of Northeast Portland as a restaurant and nano-sized brewery. Breakside expanded to a 3.5 bbl brewhouse while winning their first medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2011 where they have earned medals each year since. In late 2013 the brewery expanded operations to Milwaukie, Oregon with a 30 bbl production brewery. In 2014 Breakside was awarded with the highly coveted Gold Medal for American-style IPA at the Great American Beer Festival for their flagship IPA that was also named to Men’s Journals’ 100 Best Beers In The World and Sip Northwest’s Best IPA in the Northwest. Peaks and Pints salutes Breakside Brewery today with the five-beer sample flight Craft Beer Crosscut 4.6.17: A Flight of Breakside.
Craft Beer Crosscut 4.6.17: A Flight of Breakside
Breakside La Tormenta
7% ABV, 22 IBU
This 2016 dry-hopped sour is slightly sourer than previous editions with predominantly Citra and El Dorado hops with a touch of Mosaic. Tormenta is Spanish for “storm,” and a whirlwind of flavors bounce off the taste buds: juicy pineapple, mango, fresh-mown grass, mint, guava, grapefruit and, of course, heavy funk. Sour and hop notes pile atop each other, creating a super cohesive swallow.
Breakside Liquid Sunshine
5.2% ABV, 35 IBU
Liquid Sunshine hits the nose with bready, grainy pale malt, white soup crackers, subtle apple and pear fruit notes, slightly edgy yeast, and peppy leafy, herbal, and rather floral hop bitters. Yet, it glides in with grainy malt flavors that build a solid, biscuit foundation, on which is perfectly balanced a classically floral German hop profile. It’s not a loud mouth. It’s not trying to steal your girlfriend. It’s just a very well balanced German-style pilsner — a clean, thirst-quenching lager.
Breakside Barrel Aged Salted Caramel Stout
10.5% ABV, 40 IBU
Breakside took its delicious stout and stored it in Heaven Hill Bourbon barrels for nearly a year. Wise. Big notes of vanilla, caramel, and chocolate mix on the nose are followed by rich bourbon flavors on the mid-palate, a luscious mouthfeel, and a hint of salt in the finish. Finishes quite smooth with whiskey, vanilla and oak flavors as well as a bit of booze and a pinch of salt at the very end. Decadent and delicious.
Breakside Wanderlust IPA
6.7% ABV, 50 IBU
Why brew a second year-round IPA? Breakside’s original, awarding-winning IPA (see below) sold so well in Oregon the Portland brewery couldn’t expand its brewery’s sales to remote places like, oh, Seattle. So, it decided to make another IPA intended for export to lands near and far, Wanderlust. Made with Mosaic, Summit, Simcoe, Cascade, and Amarillo hops, it is bright golden in color and has intense tropical, dank, and grapefruit notes. By keeping the malt profile as light as possible, the interplay of hop flavors shine.
Breakside IPA
6.8% ABV, 70 IBU
Edmunds is on record saying he adjusts the hops bill regularly for the awarding-winning flagship IPA, depending on the changes in varieties between harvests and hops lots over the course of the year. The combo of Columbus, Citra, Centennial and Chinook is one of their favored combos, which is typically used to brew this delicious IPA. This copper-colored beauty smells of citrus without being too citrusy, tastes of pine without being too piney and shows off its C hops without being over-hopped. It would almost be boring, if it weren’t so good.
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